My Penances: Week of 2020-09-28

September 29, 2020

What am I personally working on this week?

No work before 8AM or earliest meeting ($20)

At my job, we recently finished a project that was understaffed and targeting an outrageous deadline. To make it happen, I got in the habit of starting work at 5 AM or earlier. Not as bad as it sounds—I’m an early riser. Long term though, it’s a huge waste of productive time, and I added this penance to break the habit.

I expect to keep this one active for a month, minimum, to ensure I don’t backslide.

No laptop after 5PM ($20)

Simple enough. I’ve been wanting more time away from screens. This one doesn’t officially ban phones, ipads, or TVs, but in the spirit of the goal, I’m avoiding them.

We’re currently in the middle of nowhere Idaho and in the absence of screens, there is nothing to do in the evenings except read books. You start to appreciate why people got so well-read before there was a TV in every house. I’ve been averaging something like 70 pages a day since instituting this.

Don’t say “classic” ($5)

A stupid verbal tic I picked up. I’m prone to falling back on a few stock phrases. Clearing those out of my vocabulary and forcing myself to think of new responses was one of the main motivations for making Penance in the first place.

Paid this one three times and it’s just Tuesday, that’s how reliant on this word I’d become.

No Twitter, only recap ($5)

I get a daily email recap of tweets from a few accounts I like. This goal requires I only look at that email, instead of going to twitter.com and absentmindedly scrolling a couple times daily.